Girl Before a Mirror, one of the most famous Picasso’s paintings, represents an enigmatic woman. She seems to be thoughtful, and you can hardly interpret her real emotion. Her innermost feeling is the thing she is concerned with. What is more, a connoisseur of art will easily notice there the peculiarities of the artist’s style, such as a special intensity of colors and bizarre patterns.
Pablo Picasso, a Spanish painter, poet, and even playwright, was born in the end of XIX century. Making history, he was a leading figure in impressionist movement. Together with Georges Braque, they developed the cubism style of painting. The master’s works of art are a great contribution to the World’s cultural heritage. Pablo Picasso and Sigmund Freud, who are considered genii, lived in the same century.
Created in 1932, Girl Before a Mirror portrays Picasso’s mistress, called Marie-Thérèse Walter. She is looking innocent and not aware of her female sexuality. The girl is meditative and inward-looking. Her physical shape is not the thing we can admire. Picasso’s aim was to make us think that an attitude can change a lot. The heroine does not splash her allure. However, desirability is an important element of her inner individuality. On the contrary, Ramos pictures women enjoying their beauty and their strong power of attraction. Viewers may treat them and their experiences very differently. People may not see the girl in the same way Picasso saw her. Apparently, women’s prettiness expressed with the help of abstract forms is very unusual.
The masterpiece shows the stance of the epoch. One of the most important events was the Civil War. This cruel strife bred social responsibility and the strong distinction between people from different social classes. Therefore, humiliation and sexual oppressions took place. With regard to it, Freud created a theory about the human subconscious and the impossibility to control it. The psychologist states that it motivates our action. Our secret thoughts and perverted wishes are hidden deeply in the subliminal part of our mind. The suppressed desires are a real obstacle on the way of self-development. Indeed, the desires that will never be the reality fragment form a personality. The person feels the lack of something. This mental strain is very distressing and alarming. It ruins self-esteem and an intuitive feeling of the goal in front of the human creature. Marie is so influenced by the disasters of the time that she can’t be happy and easy going anymore. She is not able to evaluate her true beauty. The young lady reflects the state of an average person who lived at that time. The population was horrified and aimlessly continued their existence. The fragmented generation felt instability and did not believe in the prosperous future.
The picture is the priceless creation that requires an introspective examination.
